5 Likes
Or worse. This opens up a whole new can of worms: a hostile/violent party that would actively prey on or attack a self-driving car, through attempting to run a self-driving car off the road, or shooting at a self-driving car. In an emergency situation such as this, what is the contingency plan here? Are the passengers at the mercy of the attacker? Or, in what seems like a ludicrous science-fiction scenario, does the self-driving car go into an evasive mode to evade the attacker and protect the passengers?
This seems very concerning — I’ve never heard of Waymo or Cruise addressing the very real issue of a human being in another car acting violently against the self-driving car and its passengers. We don’t live in a utopia. As much as the XKCD comic downplays the threat, it is that small percentage that is more than enough of a problem. How do self-driving cars handle a life-threatening situation like this against its passengers?
There’s plenty that concerns me about self driving cars but to be honest this scenario is very low on my list. What you’re describing is extremely rare and would not be unique to self driving cars. If someone is shooting at you that’s very bad news either way. And at least if the computer is driving you can duck your head down without increasing the odds that you’ll crash.
2 Likes
Why should self-driving cars be designed for situations like “occupants need to defend themselves in Road Warrior-style attack” but not situations like “human intervention needed to stop car from endangering public” or “occupant in need of emergency medical assistance?”
2 Likes
Because I would think that’s already been thought of, that of the car needing to stop from an internal request of an occupant needing assistance. What does the car do if an external threat is acting violently on the car, such as trying to run it off the road? I suppose the best thing for the car to do is automatically reduce speed and stop moving, to end the scenario. But if the malicious car’s occupants get out and seek to enter the self-driving car, what do the passengers do? They have no recuse for safety or self-preservation. The car is no longer moving and exiting the car provides them with less protection than they have.
And the point is precisely that occupants can’t defend themselves in the event of an attack. I don’t see any defense here. At least if you are helming the car you can do something to evade the attack or leave the scene.
Clearly it wasn’t. Imagine the car in this story had contained a person who’d just had a heart attack. How would the cop (or a paramedic) safely provide emergency assistance?
This car had no passengers so that would be a moot point here. I’d hate to see self-driving cars programmed to defend themselves at all costs even when they were unoccupied.
If you really NEED to do some kind of defensive maneuvers in that kind of rare situation then, I dunno, maybe switch it to manual driving mode?
As would I — this is not the scenario I was referring to. I brought up the hypothetical as an offshoot of the other poster mentioning less-malicious parties kicking tires or intentionally hitting a kill switch.
Easy fix. If you want to entrust your car to drive itself then you allow people to access an emergency kill-switch from the outside in situations where human intervention is required to ensure the vehicle doesn’t endanger anyone. If you’re concerned about a carjacker then you have to switch to manual driving mode to bypass the kill-switch.
If the car is unoccupied then defensive maneuvers are off the table entirely.
There is NO excuse for a self-driving car design which doesn’t give a traffic officer or an emergency worker any way of knowing if the car is about to start moving again.
“I am confused—when I pull people over, they always roll their windows down, grovel, and beg me not to kill them. What am I supposed to do next?”
2 Likes
Heres the handle. Its about 4.5 feet off the ground and safety wired in place so not that easy to pull if the tank is on the move.
Cleanup is pretty easy. You will waste a few hours restarting the engine though.
6 Likes
Yep. I’ve heard the stories second-hand. 
2 Likes
If occupants are taught this before using the vehicle as passengers, this would be a solution.
Again, this is not the scenario I was referring to. If the car is unoccupied then obviously there is no concern for the safety of any passengers inside — the car is simply a husk in this scenario, and should automatically come to a stop. And I was never advocating for defensive maneuvers with passengers inside, see my previous post. I considered it a ludicrous solution.
I’m reminded of The New Yorker cartoon.
Local reports say no citation was issued. Why not? What was worth the time of three cops pulling over the driverless car if there wasn’t anything worth citing?
2 Likes
girl says… are you serious…
That’s easy, Marjorie Taylor, Boebert, and all the other wackadoodles will write legislation requiring all passengers to carry guns and have emergency guns available in the cars.
Good guys/objects with guns is always the answer to any problem.
I’m perfectly happy with the idea of cops giving drivers friendly reminders rather than citations for minor infractions that were honest mistakes, IF they extend that courtesy to all drivers equally including POC. Their number 1 goal should always be about improving public safety, and a punitive response is definitely not the only way to do that.
1 Like
The SFPD were aware of the driverless cars. They have failed to make sure all their officers were also aware.
1 Like
Well, I’ll take the autonomous vehicle described here Roadmarks : Zelazny, Roger : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
I have to agree, although I think either Flowers or Leaves would be at least a few levels above currently available technology!
1 Like
At the very least the cops need to know where to shoot.
